


Too Hot to Handle

by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)



Series: Flufftober 2020 [24]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendly competition, Spicy Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27177424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell
Summary: Despite Clary's doubts, Jace is pretty certain he can handle a little hot sauce...
Relationships: Clary Fray & Simon Lewis, Clary Fray/Jace Wayland
Series: Flufftober 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949836
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	Too Hot to Handle

**Author's Note:**

> Flufftober Day 24: Spicy

Jace insists that he has no interest in watching pointless mundane videos on the small screen of Clary’s phone… which is true up until about the five-minute mark of Clary and Simon giggling non-stop from the corner of the room. His curiosity, and perhaps a slight feeling of being left out, finally get to him, and Jace makes his way over to where they’re watching a video of people eating hot wings.

“They’re just eating spicy things, it can’t be _that_ bad,” Jace comments, watching someone reach for tissues after literally _crying_ over how hot the sauce they just tasted is.

“You wouldn’t make it past the third one,” Clary says, not judgmentally, but confident in her assessment.

Jace tries to think back to places they’ve eaten together, trying to recall the spiciest thing she might’ve seen him eat, but comes up blank. Thinking about it now Jace has to admit that he really doesn’t eat a lot of spicy food, but not because he minds it. And certainly not because he _can’t_.

“I would too,” he counters. “I’m sure I could get through all of those no sweat.” Jace thinks it’s a safe statement to make, bold as it is, because it isn’t like he’s going to go on the weird spicy sauce show to prove it.

“We should buy the bottles!” Simon exclaims suddenly. “They sell them online, the ones they use in the show. We could have our own competition.”

Jace isn’t prepared to back up his baseless claim but he doubles-down without hesitation. “I’m in.”

\---

Jace nearly forgot about the challenge by the time the order comes in and Simon shows up at the institute with a small box of sauce bottles.

“How do we want to do this?” Simon asks. “Put it on wings like the show, or on a cracker, or just taste it right off a spoon?”

Jace shrugs, obviously not taking the whole thing too seriously. “Does it matter? We can save time and just try the hottest one, and-”

“Absolutely not,” Clary cuts in. “The fun of it is the build-up! Also, I still don’t think you’d survive the last one,” she adds, to remind him why they’re doing this in the first place. “I vote crackers, though. Minimum effort, minimum mess… plus I really want to see Jace try this like, ASAP, and don’t want to wait for wings.”

One look at the devious glint in Clary’s eyes at that statement and Jace finally begins to worry a little about this challenge.

Jace sneaks into the Institute kitchen to grab a packet of crackers and take them to where Clary and Simon are now waiting in the cafeteria.

“Sure you wanna go through with this?” Clary asks him, a challenge clear in her tone. “I’ll only tease you a little if you decide to back out now.”

Jace huffs out a laugh. “As if, Fray. Let’s do this.”

Jace makes it through two of the five sauces before he’s already suffering, and by the third one, he’s choking a bit and actually shedding a few tears. Clary’s red in the face and looking a bit uncomfortable, but nowhere near the mess that Jace is by the time he brings the fourth one up towards his mouth, catches a stinging whiff of the hot sauce and drops it back down onto the table in defeat.

“I can’t do it. I think I’m dying. I think my mouth is actually on fire and trying to burn me from the inside out,” Jace says, through alternating sips of water and milk which do absolutely nothing as far as he can tell to actually help. “No, actually, I’m pretty sure having _actual fire_ in my mouth would be less painful.”

Simon also looks like he’s about to cry, but it's over the laughter he’s trying desperately to hold in at the sight of Jace floundering in front of him. Clary, to her credit, puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and rubs small circles there despite her victorious grin. “You poor thing. We tried to warn you.”

“Why would anyone torture themselves like this?” he asks rhetorically, then gets out his stele and traces it over his Iratze to see if it might counter some of the burning sensation, which finally sends Clary over the edge of laughter.

“And you!” Jace says, turning on her. “What is your mouth made of, steel?

Clary shrugs. “I eat spicy things all the time, I’m used to it. Maybe I already burned all my taste buds away from too much curry,” she jokes. Now that he thinks about it, Clary does get this extra spicy curry thing from the Thai place they order from, but Jace has always been a creature of habit with his food and rarely deviated from his go-to orders to ever try it.

At least now he knows he never _wants_ to try it.

“Alright Fray, you win,” he says, thinking that’ll be the end of it. He then watches with barely concealed horror as Clary takes the next bottle and puts a dab of the sauce on a cracker for herself just for fun now.

“What _are_ you?” he asks dramatically, shaking his head as she pops the whole cracker into her mouth. “I can’t even watch this,” he says, standing from his chair to make a dramatic exit before he can be exposed to any more hot sauce experiments.

...also so he can sneak off to the infirmary to see if there are any potions on hand that might help with the burning in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> (Find me on [Tumblr](http://bytheangell.tumblr.com) and also on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell)! <3 )


End file.
